Start by learning all you can about local young people, the challenges they face in the future, and how they learn best. If you’re redesigning an existing school, take a close look at how well students are doing today and begin to explore what it will take to transform learning for every student.

With what you learned in Discover as background, you’ll move on to articulate a vision for your new or redesigned school. You’ll create an ambitious design that covers your school’s mission, approach to teaching and learning, strategies to ensure student voice and agency, and ideas for engaging partners to enhance the student experience.

This is the phase when your team will move from Design to practical planning. You'll map out the details in areas from staffing, training, and assessment to governance and finance. Think through how you’ll make the most of resources like time, space, and technology. And get prepared for the challenges of implementation.

Builders of the academic core necessary for college, career, and life; critical readers; compelling writers; mathematical and numeric thinkers; data and visual thinkers

Curious people who are knowledgeable about the world. Its history and culture. Its sciences and underlying mathematics. Its biology and cultural currency; engaged participants who are key to creating a more just and functional democracy—who participate fully in all America has to offer

Sense-makers—dealing with conflicting knowledge; generative thinkers—creating many ideas in ambiguous and new situations; creative thinkers—reframing, imagining, and seeing problems from different perspectives

Self-aware team members who bring their strengths; talent-seekers who find the expertise of others; essential co-creators—because of what they bring, and how they show up; inquisitive world citizens who seek out—and respect—diversity and diverse points of view

Self-driven, self-directed; curious learners—about themselves, and the world; inventors of their own learning paths, careers, and lives

A unifying set of values and principles that provide common purpose, express belief in the potential of every student, and define every aspect of a school

Innovative approaches to curriculum and teaching that use real-world, interdisciplinary learning experiences to enable students to develop and apply deep content knowledge and complex skills

Consistent emphasis on truly getting to know students, both inside and outside the classroom, and on building positive relationships among students and between students and adults

An approach to teaching, learning, and an overall school culture that focuses on giving all students opportunities to build their identities as learners and develop the capacity for agency and autonomy

Non-traditional, flexible uses of time, technology, space, place, financial resources, and roles to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning

Powerful partnerships—with community and cultural institutions, business and industry, higher education, nonprofit organizations, and health and service providers—that provide support, real-world experiences, and networking opportunities for students, enabling them to envision and set goals for the future